The Duran Podcast - West admits military production defeat to Russia

Episode Date: July 9, 2025

West admits military production defeat to Russia

All right, Alexander, let's talk about the conflict in Ukraine and let's talk about weapons production connected to conflict in Ukraine. CEO of NATO, Mark Routa, told the New York Times the other day in an interview that Russia produces more weapons in three months than all of NATO or all of the West, I forgot his exact words, produces in one year. He's made the statement in the past. So he talked about this a few months ago as well. Quite an admission from the NATO CEO, quite an admission from a leader of the Collective

West to go from Russia's running out of weapons and missiles and they're using shovels to now Russia is producing more in three months than all of the Collective West produces in a year. And I would probably take a guess and say Russia produces more in one month, at least when it comes to ammunition and missiles and stuff like that that all of the collective West does in a year. And when I say all of the collective West, I mean the United States as well. It's not only Europe. I don't think Ruta is talking only about Europe. He's talking about Europe, Canada, the United States, the entirety of NATO is being outproduced by Russia big time.

Anyway, your thoughts on military production. It is absolutely true. And bear in mind, this is being said now in three and a half years into a war, the Ukraine war, which it's been widely acknowledged, is ultimately an industrial war. It is a war of production. I mean, I can remember, you know, then they were saying earlier in the war that, you know, we've got to try and increase production of shells to match that which the Russians are producing. And if we can remember, you know, they were saying earlier in the war that, that, you know, we've got to try and increase production of shells to match that, which the Russians are producing. And if we can, can't, then, you know, we're going to lose. And it's become clear that they can't. The United States had an enormously ambitious program put together by the Biden administration to increase production of shells. Shells production has increased. It was 14,000 a month, 155mm shells. I should make that clear. It was 14,000 a month. At the start of the special military operation, they pushed it up to 36,000. They were going to push it up to 100,000.

They claimed they'd increased it to 50,000. It looks like it's actually settled between 36,000 and 40,000 a month. Whereas Russian shell production has increased by orders of magnitude more. And in Europe, they've been talking about increasing shell production there. It's very difficult to get any figures, but I understand that they haven't actually increased shell production significantly at all. Yesterday, I was reading in the Financial Times that production of Typhoon fighter jets, rather the British part in the production of Typhoon fighter jets, which is the main fighter jet produced in Europe. that it's completely stopped. They can't do that anymore.

We've had categories of weapons where the Russians have increased production to astonishing levels. We see that with drones. They're apparently well on the way to producing a thousand ground drones a day and production of pretty much everything in the United States and in Europe

and across the U collective West is either at standstill or basically is stopped. There's an extraordinary article in the Financial Times, which said that went to the big factory where they used to make the Abrams tanks. It says that they no longer actually manufacture any new tanks there, that they refurbish old tanks, but that it takes two years to refurbish as a sea. single tank. And they said, you know, well, of course, in crisis situation, that could be increased. You just thought they were in a crisis situation from the way they talked. But apparently in a crisis situation, that could be increased. I mean, they might be able to refurbish a tank, not just

in two years, but perhaps in six months or one year or something of that kind. I mean, it's astonishing. And at the same time, we're now getting reports that Russia is making 300 new tanks, T90M tanks a year, they're refurbishing and putting back into service around 1,200 other tanks a year. They've increased production of pretty much every category of weapon system, shells, missiles, those kind of things. I understand there's no production, practically no production of infantry fighting vehicles is taking place anywhere in the West of the moment.

The Russians are cranking out more and more of those things. We have lost the Industrial War, and there is no sign that we are going to be able to turn this round. The absolute white flag was signalled by that incredible article in the Economist, which said that, you know, you don't really need to re-industrialize in order to have, have powerful weapons, you can somehow have powerful weapons without making them. And then it gave Ukraine as the example of how to do that. Then they gave some absolutely fictional claims, made some absolutely fictional claims about Ukraine, but apparently Ukraine is able to have lots and

lots of weapons, especially drones, without really having factories to produce drones and things of that guy. By the way, that is out of day. Ukraine is now starting to run out of drones as well, but that's another story. But anyway, they gave Ukraine as, you know, the shape of things to come for the military industries of the mighty collective West. It was really quite an astonishing article altogether. Yeah, well, you could see by the numbers of drones that Ukraine is launching into Russia that the numbers are falling off every week or two. You can see it's getting less and less. Maybe there's a spike one day of the week where you get a hundred drones that go into Russia, but it's not at the numbers it was, say, two, three months ago. Yes. So it's clear

that Ukraine is running out of drones. Yes. It's clear that the collective West cannot keep up with Russia when we're talking about the production of weapons. Whatever happened, Alexander, to all of the plans from Europe and from the United States about building military facilities in Ukraine. Ukraine was going to be the Silicon Valley of the military industrial complex. And Ryan Metal had signed all of these contracts to build tanks, tanks and all kinds of weapons in Ukraine, the F-16 was the big game changer. No one even talks about the F-16. And even Black Rock is pulling out.

Even Black Rock with their recovery fund that they said was going to help reconstruct Ukraine, there's no one that wants to invest in this fund. You see all of these signs and all of these signals that even the Collective West is making, BlackRock is pulling out. Ruta is saying, the NATO CEO is saying Russia out produces us. It's crystal clear. Yeah. This is over. Yes, it's over.

But they've taken a decision, like you said in many videos, going back almost a year, a year plus, they've taken the decision that instead of speaking with Russia, instead of agreeing to Russia's Istanbul plus terms, which would at least preserve whatever is left of Ukraine, they've taken the decision that they're just going to be done with the whole thing, and then they'll move on to a government in exile or whatever, and that'll be that. Well, that's right. Just to round up on weapons, I mean, we also have apparently a very, very grave situation with naval ship building.

The United States has basically lost the ability to build naval ships, certainly not on anything remotely comparable to the scale the China can. The only area where it seems to me the US is still able to maintain significant production volumes, though at horrific cost is in fighter aircraft. I believe they're building that they're able, about three F-35s flow off the production lines a week, which is a high level of production, though, as I said, an appalling cost. But they're the only people in the West to do that. And as I said, in Europe, fighter jets production is declining. And gradually, Chinese production is rising. In fact, not gradually, rapidly, is rising. And Russian fighter jet production, which was at a complete standstill, by the way,

for decades until about 2015, that is increasing too. So yes, the Americans still have a strong ability to produce fighter jets, but in every other sector, they're falling behind. So yes, you're absolutely right. We are losing the industrial rule. We're losing the capacity to conduct a proper, long-term, sustainable war. It's a crisis and the immediate point of crisis is the war in Ukraine. and it is incredible that they still refuse to conduct negotiations with the Russians. But the secret, the key to understanding why is in what you say in program after program, both on this channel and on your own, which is that the priority is not really to get weapons reduction sorted out or to win the conflict in Ukraine.

or to preserve Ukraine in some way. It is to keep the endless grift, which is NATO going. So getting commitments from NATO governments, most importantly of all, the United States, to continue to pour out hundreds of billions of dollars and euros of funding, and to keep the NATO show on the road is far more important than anything else, even if this is an alliance without tanks or military aircraft or shells or guns or anything of that kind. Provided it's there and provided the money continues to go, all sorts of important people are in their jobs,

all sorts of companies will continue to get incredibly, lucrative contracts, the thing has acquired now a kind of momentum of its own. And it's more important to keep it going than anything else. Because that's the only explanation, I think, that can satisfactorily explain the paradox that you've just mentioned. Just to close out the video, can you think of anything that they've succeeded on since the special military operation started? I mean, the rare earths. What happened to the rare earths? What happened to the rare Earthsteel. No one talks about that either. And Russia captured one of the lithium involved. Yeah. Well, yeah. I mean, nothing they have done going all the way back to Project

Ukraine, to regime change in Russia, to volcanization of Russia, to the sanctions, to the confiscation of the Russian assets where I'm now convinced, now that Black Rock is pulling out, I am now convinced that they're going to make an even stronger push to steal that two. 200 billion. The F-16, the wonder weapons. Nothing they've done has worked. Two years ago, Ursula was talking about creating a slush fund where they're going to produce a million or two million shells. I don't know. I forgot what Jungle Joseph was saying. Two million shells or something like that and they would pay EU countries money to produce those shells and then hand them over to Ukraine. Whatever happened to all of these slush funds and all of these ideas and plans and money

poured in to do all of these big projects that would win the war against Russia and bring down the Putin government. Everything they've done has failed. And not only have they failed, no one's been fired. No changes have been made in Brussels or in NATO. People got promoted. And now they're talking about taking on China. Yes, I know.

But you see, failure can be measured in all sorts of ways if it's defeating Russia. Russia or forcing the Russians into capitulation or balkanizing the country or helping Ukraine to survive and triumph on the battlefronts, well, then of course it's failed. If it's getting rare earths and improving and sorting out the military industries of the West, then of course it's failed. But if it's the success, the measure of success is keeping people at Ursula and Mark Ruta and come in their jobs, then it has been as spectacular. and total success.

I mean, those people are still there. Kaya Kala has been promoted from Prime Minister of Estonia to the high representative of the EU for foreign policy. I mean, these people who have failed so completely are doing extremely well for themselves. And their major priority, obviously, is that they should continue. Things should continue that way.

we have this extraordinary situation in the West today, that the more completely you fail, the more you succeed. The same is going to be true with our Prime Minister in Britain. I mean, you know, Kirstarmer, I predict, it's not going to be his job for very long. So maybe, you know, when Mark Hooter moves on, you know, he'll be the next NATO Secretary General or he'll be, you know, there's this talk of making all kinds of people. I mean, you know, the Rafael Grossi is now being lined up for Secretary General of the United Nations. So, I mean, you know, of course, Christine Lagarde is still there at the ECB.

So you see, you know, the more, as I said, total failure is the guarantee of success. You can already see it, by the way. I mean, there's already now talk about, well, Mark, I can another example. Elina Berbock called her a foreign minister of Germany, a disastrous foreign minister of Germany. And she's now been made for a whole year, president of the United Nations General Assembly. The secretariat, Guterres and co. apparently insisted on it. So, as I said, it's an endless game of revolving chairs. All of these people who fail ultimately succeed.

and I'm sure this is going to continue. So they're doing, they are doing really well for themselves. Everybody else, of course, is not. But then who cares about everybody else? Exactly. All right. We will end the video there at the durand.locals.com. We are on Rumble and X and Telegram.

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